The Supremes Poor Performance

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids (who exist), and my great-grandkids (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

                  
Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

                                       -Image by 272447 from Pixabay-
                                                  
                                                   Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"I never want to be in the business of predicting what the U.S.Supreme Court will do." -Neal Katyal 

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

Please Note: I wrote the original version of this column prior to the tragic death of George Floyd. It fell behind the shelf I stack my columns on and I just found it while doing some late Spring cleaning.

While "columns shelf" is just a charming metaphor, I did write it over a month ago and promptly forgot about it. I've decided to tweak it and publish it now because it's about something conservatives, liberals, and progressives should be able to agree on.   

Having come across the word cert in the course of my relentless pursuit of current events and having only a vague notion as to its meaning, I went a-googlin'. Cert is an abbreviation for the word certiorari, a Latin legal term that means to be made certain in English.  

[What are you...]

One of the reasons I'm a current events junkie is because Sister Mary McGillicuddy taught me that paying attention to what's going on in a complicated world enables you to function optimally.

[Cool, however...] 

WARNING! Fading Boomer Cultural Reference Ahead

For example, I accidentally discovered that Certs:

"It's a breath mint!" 

"No, dumb bum, It's a candy mint!" 

[The second quote is wildly inaccurate, you added...]

I discovered that Certs, a 62-year-old product was quietly deleted last year, most likely (I was unable to confirm) because they contained partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, a health hazard, which is now banned by the FDA.

The bad news is that Crisco, from 1911 to 2004, was made primarily of partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil. Therefore, if your childhood, like mine, included no shortage of Crisco, well, good luck buddy.

[For the love of God! What has any of this to do with the Supremes?]  

Well, nothing really, Dana. In fact, the title of this missive is clever clickbait (or at least one hopes). This column is about the other Supremes, as in Supreme Court judges.

The point of the preceding was to illustrate that Sister Mary was doubly correct. Not only does paying attention enable you to function optimally it can lead to additional and useful information.  

[Certs and Crisco ain't...]

Facts about Certs and Crisco are useful and interesting to me (and anyone wondering if their arteries are lined with Crisco). The fact that the Supreme Court recently passed on a chance to reconsider a previous decision that promotes injustice is useful and interesting to everyone. 

[More clickbait?]

Sadly, no.   

Now, while the Purple Press and the Orange One were busy proving that so-called real life is high school with money — in the midst of a global pandemic — your friendly neighborhood crank was busy trying to get occasional peaks behind the curtain. 

While you were (hopefully) social distancing America's sweetheart, and possibly the anti-Christ, Alyssia Milano was showing off her crocheted face mask which triggered a frothing flock of twitterers. She then revealed it cleverly concealed a charcoal filter, which triggered a secondary Twitter triggering... 

The Supreme Court of the United States of America turned down the legal equivalent of a whole roll of certs asking them to reconsider what something called Sovereign Immunity is doing to the republic.

Long story short (I'm in the middle of a Charmed binge): 

The certs that I'm referring to are the certs pilled up in the Supreme Court asking that they reconsider a 1984 ruling that gives "qualified immunity" to gummit officials. You can't sue cops, for example, in civil courts for taking a shyte on your life unless they violate "clearly established law." 

[You're making up words again, and, it sounds like the Supremes got this one right so why...]

Actually, its an alt-spelled version of a real Irish word that's the Irish version of a crude English word. In my semi-humble opinion, it almost renders it poetical.  

The problem is with a legal phrase, clearly established law. Lower courts, I know not why, have interpreted this to mean that unless there's a specific law against, say a couple of cops turning a police dog loose on a suspect kneeling on the ground with his/her/their hands up you can't sue him/her/them.

[That would never happen.]

It happened. The cops were granted qualified immunity because there's no specific law against what they did. This and 12 other cert petitions asked the Supremes to take up the problem. They said no.

[Why?]

They don't have to say why they accept some cases and refuse others.   

[Somebody needs...]

Congress could fix it, today, with legislation. 

[Nevermind.]

Update, 6/14/20: From CBS News: "Senator Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, said Sunday that limiting qualified immunity for police officers in future legislation that aims to address officer misconduct would be a 'poison pill' for GOP lawmakers and effectively sink the measure."

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Cranky don't tweet.

  

      

Good Grief! I'm a Conservative?

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids (who exist), and my great-grandkids (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

                  
                                       -Photo by Amber Kipp on Unsplash-

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

                                                  Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"Conservatives are people who love something actual and want to retain it."

                                                                                      -Roger Scruton 

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

Until recently, if anyone at a cocktail party had asked me about my political and/or philosophical leanings I would have described myself as a wild-eyed libertarian and free marketeer with a bleeding heart and conservative impulses. 

[You've never been to a cocktail party.]

Well, the game's not over yet, Dana. I wonder if people even still have cocktail parties? I'll be right back...

Clearly, I need to get out more. Cocktail parties are indeed still a thing. 

I even found a posting on a website, The Trend Spotter, titled "COCKTAIL ATTIRE FOR WOMEN (THE DRESS CODE DEFINED)" with a picture of five women in need of a bacon cheeseburger (or two). 

They look like five variations on a theme: tall, heavily made-up, long-haired, Adderall addled 10-year-old boys with a suggestion of breasts posing on a rooftop in NYC. 

"Don't jump! I've got cheeseburgers and CDC approved N95 face masks!"

Sir Roger Scruton, little known outside of certain small circles, is a recently deceased polymath, gentleperson, and one of my intellectual heroes.

[Dana performs a wildly exaggerated yawn.]

I know, I know... what can I say? 

In his (and my) defense, he was born into a working-class family and his key to the ivory tower was confiscated early on for the crime of being a true, old school intellectual conservative more interested in conserving hard-learned truths than tenure or trust funds. 

Dr. Scrtton wrote more than 50 books, including four novels, lots of magazine and newspaper articles, and a couple of operas in his free time. He also qualified to be a barrister (lawyer) but didn't practice. 

[Dana performs another wildly exaggerated yawn.]

And during the 70s and 80s, he helped set up underground universities, gave lectures and smuggled banned texts in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia which at the time, my younger and/or lesser informed gentlereaders, were enslaved by the Russians. 

[Oh. Cool. Well, I didn't see that coming but...]

And, for the record, my younger and/or lesser informed gentlereaders, the current dick-tater of Russia, the Pooteen, spent the 70s and 80s working for the KGB. The KGB was to the U.S.S.R. as the Gestapo was to Adolf Hitler's Germany.

[And, for the record, what does any of this have to do with you becoming a conservative?]

Excellent question. 

If I should ever actually attend a cocktail party and if anyone asks me about my philosophical/spiritual/political leanings... 

And if I'm drunk enough to answer given that the wrong leanings in the midst of the Intersectional Inquisition might get ya canceled or killed... 

I would reply that I'm a sorta/kinda conservative with a bleeding heart and a free marketeer with libertarian impulses.

[Sorta/kinda conservative huh? I'll bet the ladies find you irresistible you bad boy you.]   

Sadly, no. But I'm still in the process of figuring out how to explain myself so perhaps there's hope. The definitions of what a conservative is by many on the left and the right don't apply to me 

But the only thing I'd like to discuss at the moment is how I got here...

[Bless you.]

Which is the same way Roger Scruton did.

In May of 1968, I was 14 years old and trying to figure out how to join the sexual revolution. 

Roger Scruton, 24, an apolitical chap at the time, was living and studying in Paris. A bunch of college students, under the spell of many of the same postmodern thinkers now revered by the woker than thou, tried to start a political revolution.

According to Wikipedia, it was to protest traditional institutions, capitalism, consumerism, American imperialism, and etecterism. They began by shutting down their schools and then took to the streets and began breaking things and setting things on fire.

Before it was over, the zany French being the zany French, everybody went on strike but then began turning on each other. Once this particular national Spring break ended everyone felt better and things returned to normal  

The young Mr. Scruton, a student living among students at the time, decided on the spot that whatever these well-fed, pampered children of the middle class were for he was for the opposite, and a conservative was born. 

In May of 2020, as best I can tell, a thug was murdered by another thug wearing a police uniform. Protestors, exercising one of their fundamental American rights, took to the streets.

However, some of them began breaking things and setting things on fire... and trampling on the rights of their fellow citizens. The hard work and dreams of many entrepreneurs of all races were damaged or destroyed along with a lot of jobs.  

I'm for conserving the opposite of whatever the hell that is.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. 

Cranky don't tweet.     

  

   

  

   

  

Fundamentally Speaking

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids (who exist), and my great-grandkids (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

                                 -Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash-

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

                                                  Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals." -Jim Rohn

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

Fundamentally speaking, these letters are primarily addressed to the Stickie's (my 4.5 grandkids) future selves and the Stickies that aren't here yet. That is to say, I hope to live long enough to meet a great-grandsticky or two.

For the record, I sorta/kinda have three great-grandstickies already, four really. It's very complicated, time will tell, and as the immortal Forest Gump might say, that's all I have to say about that (for now).

Now...

[Wait-wait-wait. Hold up there a second, Sparky. It's complicated? Time will tell? How do you expect to become a beloved American cultural commentator and humorist if you cavalierly cough up clichés?]

According to the terms and conditions of my poetic license, Dana, inserting an italicized very into — it's complicated — mitigates the clichédness of the phrase in question. 

Time will tell is more of a tried and true verbal shortcut than a cliché so put that in your pipe and smoke it. 

[I see what you did there.]

Anyways, although I often write about current events, and although I've been criticized for disguising cultural commentary as letters to my progeny, things are more complicated than that. And after all, my salutation includes my gentlereaders. 

You see, I keep trying (and failing) to write a sorta/kinda (it's very complicated) memoir for the Stickies and my daughter and son-in-law. But I have generated better than 250 (and counting) mercifully brief essays that reflect who I am (or was, if I wake up dead tomorrow). 

This is a... fundamental thing. This is why I keep writing this column in spite of the facts that my 15 minutes/underserved riches/white privilege/etceterege seem to be lost at sea. 

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." -Samuel Johnson 

"No man/woman/non-binary should ever write unless they distribute their profits equitably among the 99%." -Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

"No man, not even broads, should ever write anything. Hire a ghostwriter. Most of 'em don't got any money and won't cost you nothin'. It's a very, very beautiful thing." -Donald J. Trump 

[Fundamental thing?]

Yep. Another fundamental thing is that periodically one should stop and consider fundamental things. Why do you do what you do? What would you like to do? What would you be doing if you had achieved (deliberately, dumb luckily, or both) Woo-Hoo! level wealth? 

What, if anything, are you doing about what you're doing/would like to do/would do? What do you think constitutes the good, the true, and the beautiful? Why are...

[Could we move on, please?] 

Certainly. 

What follows are some Fundamental Facts and Things...

[Ain't that the name of the new store in downtown Hooterville?]

It was. Someone smashed out the windows and then set it on fire. 

I'd like to list some fundamental things in case I wake up dead tomorrow. You never know, you know?...do you smell smoke? 

In the interest of brevity, and due to the fact "lived experience" is, fortunately, replacing the patriarchal constructs and tools of oppression — logic, reason, and proof — there are neither links nor supporting arguments. My lived experience has taught me the following fundamental things. 

- Anybody in their right mind thinks that kneeling on even a criminal/druggies neck after they've been placed under control is murder. 

- If ya use certain substances — fentanyl with a meth chaser to try and keep the fentanyl from killing you for example — things may not go well for you for all sorts of reasons.   

- If you'd like to be a successful, happy, and civilized man/woman/_______:

"Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime." -Amy Waxman

- The preceding paragraph is a list of virtuous behaviors proven to be worth striving for. No sane person expects you, or themselves, to do more than try their best and be open to course correction.   

- There's a big difference between substance abuse and the careful use of certain substances.     

 - Carbs make you fat; refined sugar may be as addictive as cocaine.

- Caffeine, in moderation, is good for the body and the mind. Some refined sugar, in moderation, is good for the soul. Two words, ice cream.

 - Sensible fasting and moderate exercise is the key to good mental and physical health.

- "Police brutality against African-Americans is a huge problem in every way except statistically." -Scott Adams 

- So-called real life is high school with money. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me some cheap coffee.  

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. 

Cranky don't tweet.